Sanskrit Drama in Theory and Practice
Dr.
George Anca, Romania
The
greatest Playwrights – Valmiki, Vyasa, Sudraka, Bhasa, Kalidasa, Asvagosa,
Bhavabuti are considered together and within Natyasastra, the immortal treaty of Bharata, inspiring upto day,
the theorists of Sanskrit drama – Bartrhari, Vamana, Anandavardhana,
Abhinavagupta, Mammata... Classic concepts like natya, kavya, rasa, dhvani,
pratibha, sahrdaya, sphota made room to revelatory analogies between Sanskrit
and Shakespeare's plays, first of all Sakuntala-Hamlet.
Prologue-Benediction of Kalidasa's Sakuntala
inspired that to Goethe's Faust and
Eminescu's Calin/”Kalidasa”.
Likewise, for instance, the Tamil “Protest” Theater (1900-1930), or postmodern
“enchantment” as being at the core of “Shakuntala and the Ring of Recognition”,
staged imaginatively in 2010 by George Drance. Natyanova from Kolkata performed
in 2011 at Bucharest National Theater a Shraddhanjali based on Meghaduta by Kalidasa, Gita Govinda by Jayadeva,
Gitanjali by Tagore.
Theory
hints
“Shall
we neglect the works of such illustrious authors as Bhāsa, Saumilla, and
Kaviputra? Can the audience feel any respect for the work of a modern poet, a
Kālidāsa?” Asked Kalidasa himself in his first play
Malavikagnimitram. Indeed,
plays by Bhasa, Shudraka,
and, especially, Kalidasa, created
within the first three centuries of beginning, were most performed.
Bharata
Muni - “leader of the performance” - revealed
Nātyaśāstra, in 6000 slokas, 32
chapters, ending with “Descent of drama on the Earth”. There are eight
principal rasas: love, pity, anger,
disgust, heroism, awe, terror and comedy, and that plays should mix different rasas but
be dominated by one. Commentaries of the Natya
Shastra are Matanga's Brihaddesi (500–700
CE), Abhinavagupta's Abhinavabharati (artistic
analysis) and Sharngadeva's Sangita Ratnakara (13th
century – raga structure).
Only
the most elite characters in the plays, only divine beings, kings, and brahmans
speak Sanskrit. Other characters - soldiers, merchants, townspeople, etc., -
and nearly all women speak colloquial languages – Prakrits. The Nataka plays feature
stories about kings and divine beings. The Prakarana plays revolve
around middle-class characters. The existing three hundred Sanskrit dramas end
happily, but Bhasa’s Urubhangam.
Ramayana Play (theory and practice)
Valmiki, Kamban and Tulsidas are
universal revealers of Rama, but also of Hanuman. Devotees of Ramayana meet
bhakti. The ramayanic spring bring the thirsted receiver to an ever fresh
newness of divine spirit and beauty. The music of Hindi Ramcharit Manas, an
Indian Divine Comedy, is heard also far out from temple in the hearts of
different believers, beyond dry ecumenical talks. The joy to re-tell Raamaayana
and awakening from a dream when it is over, made Rajagopalachary to equal in a
subliminal way Raamaayana with Seeta herself:
“When the Prince left the city, he
felt no sorrow; it was only when he lost Seeta that he knew grief. So with me
too. When I had to step down from high office and heavy responsibility, I did
not feel at a loss or wonder what to do next. But now, when I have come to the
end of the tale of the Prince of Ayodhya, the void is like that of a shrine
without a god.” ( C. Rajagopalachari, Ramayana, Bhartya Vidya Bhavan, Mumbay,
1996, p.313).
Srimad
Valmiki Ramayana is smriti („ memory”), an epic poem which
narrates the journey of Virtue to annihilate vice. Sri Rama is the Hero and aayana His journey.
In
almost all of North India, the Tulsidas Ramayana,
also known as the Ramcharitmanasa, is
the most popular. Goswami Tulsidas rewrote the Valmiki version in Hindi in
about 1574, changing it somewhat to emphasize Rama as an avatara (incarnation) of Vishnu. Another notable change was that
Sita had a duplicate, who was kidnapped while Sita remained safe. In the Kamban
Ramayana, popular in the state of
Tamil Nadu, segments of the story were changed to better reflect Tamil ideas,
including Ravana not being as cruel to Sita.
The
easiest way to attain Lord Rama is to worship Hanuman: “Tumhare bhajan Ram ko pavae”;
“Nothhing exist but God”; “You are the whole I am a part”; “I see that you are
I and I am you”. One can see firstly an impish young monkey flying to the sun,
becoming distracted and falling, thus earning his name which means “broken
chin” (Li Min). Think also to Sun Wukong’s Journey to the West, and also to
Hobbits journey through the wilderness, into maturity.
The ancient message of the Ramayana
continues to be relevant for the human race. It is not surprising that Mahatama
Gandhi was tremendously influenced by the teachings of the Ramayana. If
Gandhiji is still relevant for the world so is his guidebook - Ramayana.
„The Ramayana has
come to the London stage in symbolic obeisance to a hydra-headed phenomenon the
West's fascination with exotic Eastern faiths. /.../ its director, Sri Lankan
Tamil Indu Rubasingham calls 'yet another instance of this amazing ancient
story speaking to a community at its time and place and in a way it can
understand'. The end result is a quasi-spiritual
version of London street life, an exercise the play's writer, Peter Oswald,
accepts is a difficult 'balance between the human and the divine' “ (“Ramayana
reinvented for alien times and stage” by Rashmee Z. Ahmed in The Times of
India, April 19, 2001).
Shudraka, Basha, Ashvagosha
Plays of Bhāsa based on Ramayana: Pratima-nataka: The statues: Yagna-Phalam:Abhisheka-natka: The coronation. Plays based on Mahabharata:
Panch-ratra: The five-nights; Madhyama-vyayoga; The middle one; Duta-Ghattotkacha: Ghattotkacha as envoy; Duta-Vakya: The envoy's message; Urubhanga: The broken thigh; Karna-bhara: Karna's burden; Harivamsa or Bala-charita: Hari's dynasty or the tale of Childhood.
Aśvaghoṣa,
a wandering ascetic, wrote the epic, Buddhacharita. (Acts of the Buddha) in
Sanskrit. 28 chapters on Buddha's life, from
his birth until his entry into Parinirvāna. During the Muslim invasions of the
10th – 12th centuries, half of the original Sanskrit text was lost. Today, the
second half of it exists only in Chinese and Tibetan translations.
Three Sanskrit plays are ascribed to Śūdraka
- Mricchakatika (The Little Clay
Cart), Vinavasavadatta, and , Padmaprabhritaka.
Mrcchakatika, a ten-act drama, is set in the ancient city of Ujjayini
during the reign of the King Pālaka. The
central story is that of noble but impoverished young brahmin, Chārudatta, who falls in love with a wealthy
courtesan, Vasantasenā. Their lives and love are threatened by a vulgar courtier, Samsthānaka, also known
as Shakara.
Rife
with romance, comedy, intrigue and a political subplot detailing the overthrow
of the city's despotic ruler by a shepherd, the play departs from traditions
enumerated in the Natya Shastra that specify that dramas should focus on the
lives of the nobility and instead incorporates a large number of middle and
lower-caste characters who speak a wide range of Prakrit dialects. The story is thought to be derived from
an earlier work called Chārudatta in
Poverty by the playwright Bhāsa, though that work survives only in fragments.
Mṛcchakaṭika remains one of the mostd oft-performed in the West.
The work played a significant role in generating interest in Indian theatre
among European audiences following several successful nineteenth century
translations and stage productions, most notably Gérard de Nerval and Joseph Méry's highly romanticized French adaptation titled Le Chariot d'enfant that premiered in Paris in 1850, as well as a critically acclaimed
"anarchist" interpretation by Victor Barrucand called Le Chariot de terre cuite that was produced by the Théâtre de l'Œuvre in 1895.
Kālidāsa wrote three plays: Mālavikāgnimitram ("Mālavikā and Agnimitra"),
Abhijñānaśākuntalam ("Of
Shakuntala recognised by a token"), Vikramōrvaśīyam ("Pertaining to Vikrama and
Urvashi"). Poems: Raghuvaṃśa ("Dynasty of Raghu"), Kumārasambhava (Birth of 'Kumara' or Subrahmanya);
khandakavyas: Ṛtusaṃhāra (“the seasons”).
Shakuntala
– A play in seven acts. The first four
acts pass in Kanva’s forest hermitage; acts five and six in the king’s palace;
act seven on a heavenly mountain. The time is perhaps seven years.
Not all is good that bears an ancient
name,
Nor need we every modern poem blame:
Wise men approve the good, or new or old;
The foolish critic
follows where he’s told.
Assistant. - The responsibility rests with you, sir.” (Translation
by Arthur Ryder).
As
in many other plays, the same story: the king who falls in love with a
maid-servant, the jealousy of his harem, the eventual discovery that the maid
is of royal birth, and the addition of another wife. But it is the earliest
work of the greatest poet who ever sang repeatedly of love between man and
woman. Malavika is a precursor of Sita, of Indumati, of the Yaksha’s bride, and
of Shakuntala.
Urvashi, following a tale from Rigveda,
treated dramatically by Kalidasa, survived the changes in the passage from
Vedic to classical times. In the Veda, Pururavas, a mortal, loves the nymph
Urvashi. She consents to live with him on earth. After the birth of a son, she
leaves him. He finds her, pleading by her duty as a wife, even by a threat of
suicide. She answers that there can be no lasting love between mortal and
immortal: “There are no friendships with women. Their hearts are the hearts of
hyenas.” And it remains a tragedy of love between human and divine.
As
the Indian theater permits no tragedy on the stage, Kalidasa has changed the
traditional story, with introduction of the queen, the clown, and the court;
the curse pronounced on Urvashi for her carelessness in the heavenly drama, and
its modification; the invention of the gem of reunion; and the final removal of
the curse. The clown observes: “Who wants heaven? It is nothing to eat or
drink. It is just a place where they never shut their eyes—like fishes!” The
play offers an opportunity for charming scenic display. Like all Indian plays,
it is an opera.
The Dynasty of Raghu is an epic poem in
nineteen cantos - 1564 stanzas - over six thousand lines of verse. The subject
is the line of kings - the “solar line” - with origin to the sun, having Rama
as star: the four immediate ancestors of Rama (cantos 1-9); Rama (cantos
10-15); certain descendants of Rama (cantos 16-19). Kalidasa introduces Valmiki
into his own epic, making him compose the Ramayana in Rama’s lifetime. The Dynasty of Raghu has been used for
centuries as a text-book in India
“Kalidasa
understood in the fifth century what Europe did not learn until the nineteenth,
and even now comprehends only imperfectly, that the world was not made for man,
that man reaches his full stature only as he realizes the dignity and worth of
life that is not human.” (Arthur Reader, quoted by Jawaharlal Nehru in Discovery of India). ”Kalidasa is considered as the greatest poet
of `shringAr' (or romance, beauty). /.../ Sometimes he has used `hAsya' (comedy) and `karuN.'
(pathos).” (Sameer Mahajan).
From Gita:
“It does not behove us to kill relations”; “certain is death for the born, / and
certain is birth for the dead”. Hamlet :
“To be or not to be”... “all that lives must die”. Such correspondences are
analyzed by Sangeeta Mohanti in The
Indian Response to Hamlet: Shakespeare Reception in India and a study of Hamlet
in Sanskrit Poetics (Dissertation, Basel, (2010/2005). In her dissertation
(Illinois, 2014), Aesthetics as
resistance: Rasa, Dhvani, and Empire in Tamil “Protest” Theater (1900 – 1930),
Deepa Sundaram asks herself: “Can aesthetic 'relishing' (rasavada) be
transformed into patriotic sentiment and fuel anti colonial resistance?”
“I
live the misterious longing Kalidasa described in Sakuntala” ( Maytreyi Devy, It
does not die, Calcutta, 1976; Bucharest, 1999). Kalidasa: “and his heart
overflows with a longing/
he does not recognize”; “O cloud, your splendour enhanced by rainy season, and may you never be separated like this even for a moment from your spouse, the lightning.” (Meghaduta).
he does not recognize”; “O cloud, your splendour enhanced by rainy season, and may you never be separated like this even for a moment from your spouse, the lightning.” (Meghaduta).
Vasile
Voiculescu places Sakuntala on a gypsy tent in the Carpathians. Dionis loves
the gypsy Rada, alias Sakuntala . From Dushyanta to Dionis (see at Eminescu,
Eliade, Voiculescu), we discretely wake up in the myth of Dionysus journey to
India and his becoming a quasi Shiva. We are after Urwashi (Kalidasa), Dulcinea
(Cervantes), the Russian Woman (Gib Mihăescu), Ondine (Gireaudoux).
My Romanian versions of Kalidasa Meghaduta, in transferred mandakranta meter of 17 syllables, and Jayadeva's Gita Govinda, transposing Sanskrit sounds of the original, were published initially in Delhi. Like Voiculescu with Sacuntala, I paraphrased, later on, Kumarasambhava by Kalidasa in a opera script, Parvati.
My Romanian versions of Kalidasa Meghaduta, in transferred mandakranta meter of 17 syllables, and Jayadeva's Gita Govinda, transposing Sanskrit sounds of the original, were published initially in Delhi. Like Voiculescu with Sacuntala, I paraphrased, later on, Kumarasambhava by Kalidasa in a opera script, Parvati.
This essay follows to decades of others on alankara
poetics, as well as translations from Sanskrit and other Indian poetic works. Starting from the “recognition” in Shakuntala and Calin, we wrote a book on the respective abhijnana concept - Literary Anthropology.
Shakuntala gave birth to a boy. As a
six years’ child in Kanva’s hermitage he rode on the backs of lions, tigers,
and boars. The sage saw said to Shakuntala: “It is time for him to be anointed crown
prince.” When
Shakuntala drew near, she was recognised and invited to enter, and she said to
the king: “This is your son, O King. You must anoint him crown prince, just as
you promised before, when we met.”
A bodiless voice from heaven said :
“Care for your son, Dushyanta. Do not despise Shakuntala. You are the boy’s
father. Shakuntala tells the truth.” Then the king received his son gladly and
joyfully.
When
he heard the utterance of the gods, the king joyfully said to his chaplain and
his ministers: “Hear the words of this heavenly messenger. If I had received my
son simply because of her words, he would be suspected by the world, he would
not be pure.”
Mṛcchakaṭika plot
Chārudatta is a generous man from the
who, through his charitable contributions to unlucky friends and the general
public welfare, has severely impoverished himself and his family. Though
deserted by most of his friends and embarrassed by deteriorating living
conditions, he has maintained his reputation in Ujjayini as an honest and upright man
with a rare gift of wisdom and many important men continue to seek his counsel.
Though happily married and the recent father of a young
son, Rohasena, Chārudatta is enamored of Vasantasenā, a courtesan of great
wealth and reputation. After a chance encounter at the temple of Kāma, he has found that she loves him in
return, though, the matter is complicated when Vasantasenā finds herself
pursued by Samsthānaka, a half-mad brother-in-law of King Pālaka, and his
retinue. When the men threaten violence, Vasantasenā flees, seeking safety with
Chārudatta. Their love blossoms following the clandestine meeting, and the
courtesan entrusts her new lover with a casket of jewelry in an attempt to
ensure a future meeting.
Her plan is thwarted, however,
when a thief, Sarvilaka, enters Chārudatta’s home and steals the jewels in an
elaborate scheme to buy the freedom of his lover, Madanikā, who is
Vasantasenā’s slave and confidant. The courtesan recognizes the jewelry, but
she accepts the payment anyway and frees Madanikā to marry. She then attempts
to contact Chārudatta and inform him of the situation, but before she can make
contact he panics and sends Vasantasenā a rare pearl necklace that had belonged
to his wife, a gift in great excess of the value of the stolen jewelry. In
recognition of this, Chārudatta's friend, Maitreya, cautions the Brahmin
against further association, fearing that Vasantasenā is, at worst, scheming to
take from Chārudatta the few possessions he still has and, at best, a
good-intentioned bastion of bad luck and disaster.
Refusing to take this advice, Chārudatta makes
Vasantasenā his mistress and she eventually meets his young son. During the
encounter, the boy is distressed because he has recently enjoyed playing with a
friend's toy cart of solid gold and no longer wants his own clay cart that his
nurse has made for him. Taking pity on him in his sadness, Vasantasenā fills
his little clay cart with her own jewelry, heaping his humble toy with a mound
of gold before departing to meet Chārudatta in a park outside the city for a
day’s outing. There she enters a fine carriage, but soon discovers that she is
in a gharry belonging to Samsthānaka, who remains
enraged by her previous affront and is madly jealous of the love and favor she
shows to Chārudatta. Unable to persuade his henchmen to kill her, Samsthānaka
sends his retinue away and proceeds to strangle Vasantasenā and hide her body
beneath a pile of leaves. Still seeking vengeance, he promptly accuses
Chārudatta of the crime.
Though the Brahmin proclaims his innocence, his presence
in the park along with his son's possession of Vasantasenā's jewels implicate
the poverty-stricken man, and he is found guilty and condemned to death by King
Pālaka. Unbeknownst to all, however, the body identified as Vasantasenā’s was
actually another woman. Vasantasenā had revived and befriended by a Buddhist
monk who nursed her back to health in a nearby village.
Just as
Chārudatta faces execution, Vasantasenā appears and, seeing the excited crowd,
intervenes in time to save him from execution and his wife from throwing herself onto the funeral
pyre. Together the
three declare themselves a family. Reaching the courts, Vasantasenā tells the
story of her near death and, following her testimony, Samsthānaka is arrested
and the good Prince Āryaka deposes the wicked King Pālaka. His first acts as
the newly declared sovereign is to restore Chārudatta’s
fortune and give him an important position at court. Following this good will,
Chārudatta demonstrates in the final act his enduring virtue and charity,
appealing to the King for pardon on behalf of Samsthānaka who is subsequently
declared free.
*
A Yaksha,
or divine attendant on Kubera, god of wealth, is exiled for a year from his
home in the Himalayas. As he dwells on a peak in the Vindhya range, half India
separates him from his young bride; After eight months of growing emaciation,
the first cloud warns him of the approach of the rainy season, when neglected
brides are wont to pine and die. Unable to send tidings otherwise of his health
and unchanging love, he resolves to make the cloud his messenger.
He assures
the cloud that his bride is neither dead nor faithless; further, that there
will be no lack of traveling companions. He then describes the long journey,
beginning with the departure from Rama’s peak, where dwells a company of
Siddhas, divine beings of extraordinary sanctity. The Mala plateau. The Mango
Peak. The Reva, or Nerbudda River, foaming against the mountain side, and
flavoured with the ichor which exudes from the temples of elephants during the
mating season. The Dasharna country, and its capital Vidisha, on the banks of
Reed River.
The famous
old city of Ujjain, the home of the poet, and dearly beloved by him; and the
river, personified as a loving woman, whom the cloud will meet just before he
reaches the city. The city of Ujjain is fully described, especially its famous
shrine to Shiva, called Mahakala; and the black cloud, painted with twilight
red, is bidden to serve as a robe for the god, instead of the bloody elephant
hide which he commonly wears in his wild dance.
The
Hallowed Land, where were fought the awful battles of the ancient epic time. In
these battles, the hero Balarama, whose weapon was a plough-share, would take
no part, because kinsmen of his were fighting in each army. He preferred to
spend the time in drinking from the holy river Sarasvati, though little
accustomed to any other drink than wine.
The
Ganges River, which originates in heaven. Its fall is broken by the head of
Shiva, who stands on the Himalaya Mountains; otherwise the shock would be too
great for the earth. But Shiva’s goddess-bride is displeased. The dark cloud is
permitted to mingle with the clear stream of Ganges, as the muddy Jumna River
does near the city now called Allahabad.
The
magnificent Himalaya range. The mountain pass called the Swan-gate. And at
Mount Kailasa, the long journey is ended; for on this mountain is the city of
the Yakshas.
The
splendid heavenly city Alaka,where the flowers which on earth blossom at
different seasons, are all found in bloom the year round. Here grows the magic
tree which yields whatever is desired. Here are the stones from which drops of
water ooze when the moon shines on them. Here are the magic gardens of heaven.
Here
the god of love is not seen, because of the presence of his great enemy, Shiva.
Yet his absence is not severely felt. Here the goddesses have all needful
ornaments. For the Mine of Sentiment declares: “Women everywhere have four
kinds of ornaments—hair-ornaments, jewels, clothes, cosmetics; anything else is
local.”
And
here is the home of the unhappy Yaksha, with its artificial pool; its hill of
sport, girdled by bright hedges, like the dark cloud girdled by the lightning;
its two favorite trees, which will not blossom while their mistress is grieving;
its tame peacock; and its painted emblems of the god of wealth.
The
Yaksha’s bride. The passion of love passes through ten stages, eight of which
are suggested in this stanza and the stanzas which follow. The first stage is
not indicated; it is called Exchange of Glances. In this stanza and the
preceding one is suggested the second stage: Wistfulness.The third stage:
Desire. The fourth stage: Wakefulness. the fifth stage: Emaciation. the siath
stage: Loss of Interest in Ordinary Pleasures. the seventh stage: Loss of
Youthful Bashfulness.
the
eighth stage: Absent-mindedness. For if she were not absent-minded, she would
arrange the braid so as not to be annoyed by it. the ninth stage: Prostration.
The tenth stage, Death, is not suggested.
Quivering
of the eyelids. and trembling of the limbs are omens of speedy union with the
beloved. The cloud is instructed how to announce himself in such a way as to
win the favor of his auditor. The message itself. According to the treatise
called “Virtue’s Banner,” a lover has four solaces in separation: first,
looking at objects that remind him of her he loves; second, painting a picture
of her; third, dreaming of her; fourth, touching something which she has
touched.
*
New York Ramayana
“raag”
basil tulsi
hindu canon
evening raga
serenity
person continuity
one out of thousand but you
the sounds search you
in knowledge of sin
still in yaman
on swastika
of prosperity
without Hitler
you breath self
gods of sounds
embodiments of silence
the luck of epiphanies
everybody with own's and raga
atman encercles you
sitar the reaper of poppies
translator of gitanjali
soft sounds of collapse
in dancing dharma
stay undestructured
thunder raga
argonauts from raga
returning way
cosmic
pray
parents
Gita
Kurukshetra
raag
organ masked in sitar
invitation avatar
no more sadness amar
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